Hotel have taken all my spending money ...ridiculous?

[whatshardknock]

I'll currently at a hotel in London (Piccadilly circus )
I'm here for 4 nights (checked in yesterday)
I'm meeting friends who I haven't seen in years.
It's been a bit of a treat it's a lovely hotel and I've spent £1000 on the hotel (which I never do )As a treat after a shit year.
I booked on booking.com
I checked my bank the £1000 has came out and also a pending £800
I spoke to downstairs and the £800 will be refunded after I leave.
That's pretty much all my spending money.
Aibu to think booking.com should have said and also £800 deposit for a 4 night stay is mental surely.

What do the terms and conditions of your booking say?

It's £200 deposit per night

This sounds like a potential crime. I'd talk to reception one more time and make it clear that you are reporting it as theft to the police.

Yes that is ridiculous!

It’s not a crime if it’s in the terms and conditions. The op signed up to them and agreed.

Ffs.

It says a pre authorisation of my card will happen after check in but doesn't say the amount (I was thinking £50/£100)
It says it could take 30 days to go back on my card depending on financial institution.

@Sparkletastic

This sounds like a potential crime. I'd talk to reception one more time and make it clear that you are reporting it as theft to the police.

Theft? No. 😂

They didn't take the money. They blocked it. I am pretty sure it will be in their t&cs

That's why most hotels ask for a credit card, it's maybe not that common now but I remember going to lotd of hotels particularly in Japan and Australia and they always took a 500 quid deposit on the credit card. We had 2 credit cards in case the first one hadn't been refunded before we needed it for the next place.

Surely if you have a credit card then you can just use that for the stay and then pay it back with the 800 quid at the end.

"Pre authorisation" usually means they don't take the money unless an incident occurs

This isn't right

Bloody hell. I'm guessing it wasn't clearly laid out in the T&C.
I know some places do that, but it's usually £50 or something.
If it's in the T&C (of the hotel communication) and you didn't see it, I suppose there's not much you can do, but if it isn't, then really complain.

Is the additional a pre-authorisation which was done on check in? The receptionist who checked you in should have explained the process. It is standard to authorise for additional expenses, although most hotels will allow you not to authorise if you prepay on arrival. They can cancel the pre-authorisation manually at reception straight away if they want to, but depending on your card issuer it could be a few days before it is released and the funds are available to spend.

Ohhhhh I would be fuming!!!!!! Can you checkout and demand a refund? Stay elsewhere

I haven't got a credit card.
I paid for hotel with my debit card and it's my debit card they've reserved funds on.

its normal for hotels to put a block on a large sum so that if you clear out the in-room minibar and get room service every night, they can be sure the transaction won't be declined because you have already spent up to your limit.

obviously too late for this trip but my strategy is to pay for the hotel on a different card than the one I plan to use for spending money.

this kind of thing is well known among people who use hotels regularly, and frequently catches out people like you who do it as a rare or one-off treat and don't know the pitfalls.

Everyone typed faster than me

Normally I'm a premier inn girl.
I should have stuck to that.

That’s normal, so you don’t splurge on the mini bar and do a runner. Usually people give a credit card for this so there’s no issue. Can you call your bank and ask for a temporary over draft?

If they won’t budge on that are you able to contact your bank and ask for a pre authorised od ?
At least ask their advice .

It sounds steep, and I've not heard of this before . I've just booked a week away with my mum in September and they wanted a £200 deposit, I'd better check that's not for every day!
I would totally recommend too that you get a credit card just for this kind of thing. I don't use a CC normally but I do for trips/holidays/large purchases (eg recently I had to make a claim for an item that didn't turn up (then transfer the cash straight away via online banking).

That is a ridiculous amount of money to ring fence op, it’s usually about £50 where I stay. Maybe I use more downmarket places.

I don't even intend on using the mini bar or room service

So you've paid up front and then they've taken a deposit?

No, I've never seen that - I've stayed in a fair few swanky hotels.

If paying up front they've never taken a "deposit" as well. That's nuts.

It's a standard procedure in many high end hotels. Please don't listen to PP to go to the police or you will only end up making a fool of yourself. The deposit is to cover unpaid room service or drinks charges which can go up to 200 for 2 people (obviously you're staying alone but the hotel's system doesn't differentiate).

The easiest way may just be to explain the situation and have them manually refund the deposit earlier. Unfortunately the deposit system is automised for bookkeeping purposes so it may be harder than expected. A friend working at a hotel explained this to me once after a new member of staff at another hotel made a mistake with our deposit.

Booking.com, Expedia, Tripadvisor & co handle thousands of bookings per day and they never check whether individual details for certain hotels are correct, let alone warn people of extra charges.

This happened to us when we were first married, so frustrating.
I got home from that trip and took out a credit card for the purpose. It turned out to help in more ways as doing abit of food shopping on it and paying it off that month occasionally improved my credit rating so I was more easily able to get a mortgage